Twin Paradox_Book Two Page 3

  People had to look out for themselves and their families after all. Desperation and fear turned normally compassionate, caring individuals into selfish and occasionally warlike beings.

  But in Part Two of her series, Cory focused much of her attention on the days of recovery—and also retribution—that followed the first six months of the debacle. The gallant heroes of the former U.S. military—as the government-controlled media now boldly portrayed them—eventually moved into major cities to quell remnants of the many rebellions that had sprung up, eliminating the last of deadly war bands as the military preferred to describe them. These hastily-assembled paramilitary groups were often headed by a warlord or gang leader who had rallied tough individuals around him to seize control of a neighborhood or section of the city when anarchy descended over the area. Many of these warlords were opportunists—no doubting that—but quite a few were actually quite normal people prior to the crisis who felt compelled to organize supporters around them in self-defense of their local turf. This was quite understandable in many cases, given the circumstances they faced.

  After all, there was absolutely no help on the way for literally millions of desperately poor people trapped in those cities. If one gang of ruffians sought to take over the local grocery store or gas station once the system began to collapse, who could stop them?

  The mob soon took over. Urban street gangs ruled practically everything and everyone still existing within their sphere of control. For those unfortunates who remained, to survive meant accommodating them or even collaborating, and many people were reduced to serving and supporting those ruffians at the very least for their own protection and safety—if not from the local gang itself—paying tribute to them or performing services for them which most survivors of the debacle would later simply wish to forget or suppress any memory of. The young reporter found only a few people who would comment on experiences like that; and most preferred to be interviewed anonymously.

  Open warfare among these groups soon escalated too, resulting in violent gun battles on the streets and in the urban apartment complexes of Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Orleans, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Houston, and Denver. For that matter, every major US city experienced this at least to some degree, and when the gangs established themselves, the government soon grew to realize there was nothing that could be done short of abandoning control and aiding refugees who’d somehow made it out.

  But it wasn’t as simple as that, as Cory went on to report in her exposé. The military’s tactics during the spring and early summer after the crash were quite brutal at times and rarely just. Some confided in her, usually off-camera when they did so for fear of retribution from the government and ostracism from their own neighbors who most likely had demons of their own to deal with regarding what they’d seen—and done.

  Cory reported that many thousands of refugees escaping the cities months after the crash soon found military barricades blocking their exit; and the process for assimilating them back into society often brought them under intense scrutiny as to their conduct during the crisis. Citizens underwent questioning after being herded into holding pens as the military referred to them, often as small as football stadiums—and sometimes they were massive compounds spanning many acres encircled with razor wire—until military officials determined they could be released.

  During these difficult experiences, some reported to Cory that neighbors desperate to exonerate themselves of collaborating with gangsters would turn on one another and accuse each other of looting, robbing, or committing violence against helpless victims whose only crime had been that they possessed food or supplies and had no means for defending themselves adequately. It literally happened that way to hundreds of otherwise peaceful people who found themselves ordered by the local warlord and his band of thugs to aid them in their nightly raids.

  Accusations led to inquiries. Inquiries led to witness verification. And if the officer in charge of those investigations felt there was sufficient evidence to support the original charges, those unfortunate enough to face these kangaroo courts would often be taken out of the compound…and shot. “Just one less mouth to feed,” is the way they rationalized it in those days. That’s probably why stories like that rarely got told to succeeding generations. No one wanted to remember it, and most everyone who’d passed through this nightmare had blood on their hands in at least some shape or form for what they’d done—or not done—during that very dark time in history.

  Meanwhile, over in Europe, the effects of the crash were much the same as in North America. Cities like Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Rome all experienced riots and gang problems with roaming bands of hooligans taking over entire sections of urban areas. Looting, shootouts with riot police, starving refugees fleeing the cities for the countryside…Europeans certainly saw and experienced their share of the turmoil.

  But through it all, one person—one respected and honorable figurehead—managed to surface amidst the chaos and ultimately rise to power. His name was Karl Thomas Robert Maria Franziskus Georg Bahnam. But to the world he soon became known as Karl von Habsburg, the eldest son of Otto von Habsburg who’d once renounced his claim to the Austrian throne, thereby ending the centuries-old Habsburg Empire.

  Only he and he alone had the clout and reputation, as well as the credentials and legitimacy to seize control from terrified politicians who froze in fear or selfishly tried to save their own skins and flee before the mobs dragged them into the streets and pillaged their homes. It was Karl von Habsburg who rose to the occasion during mankind’s great hour of need.

  An embattled and exhausted Europe, still in turmoil over the effects of the worldwide crash, soon embraced him and his progressive ideals as a possible savior to step in and lead Europe and the rest of the world out of this new Dark Age in human history before the entire globe descended even further into anarchy. Indeed, he was, for all intents and purposes, the right man at just the right time in history; and the only man or woman who could bear this tremendous burden.

  Chapter 3

  The Rise of the Global Union

  In “Part Three” of Cory’s exposé, she addressed Karl Habsburg’s meteoric rise to power amidst the chaos of a fractured and disjointed Europe. This was quite easy to research using government-approved macronet sites on her computer. He had instant credibility it was said—for several valid reasons—and not just because he was a Habsburg of royal lineage. Europeans had little or no patience for royals. No, nostalgia for Europe’s glorious past was never a consideration at all. There were far better reasons why the public quickly embraced him.

  True, even government-sanctioned historical documentaries and approved content within college textbooks would often tell of the legitimacy of his background. For that matter, most any sixth-former in England or high school senior in the Province of North America knew about his credentials. The life of Karl Habsburg was regularly taught about in class. He was truly the real article—an educated and credible leader with a background supporting the hard work of his father in attempting to promote a united Europe. His Pan Europa movement had almost immediate appeal when his supporters began campaigning in support of him; and there was good reason for that as well, at least according to official accounts.

  First off, the Pan Europa movement Karl championed was fiercely independent of all existing political parties, and possessed a strict code of conservative Christian principles which not surprisingly helped Karl gain widespread acceptance. Best of all, it warmly welcomed and acknowledged contributions from both Islam and Judaism whose heritages the Pan Europeans professed to share. To an already-integrated Europe which had experienced so much political and social strife from its ethnic minorities in the recent past—as well as from right wing zealots who campaigned openly for their expulsion—the proposal of a united and tolerant Europe soon gained appeal among a rather jaded electorate.

  Habsburg and the Pan Europeans, who swept into power late in the yea
r of 2028, immediately began instituting systemic change, not only within the political structure of European nations but also in terms of sane economic policies. Wasteful social programs for the needy? Unemployment Benefits? These were all eliminated or unfunded. Millions were affected, and Cory assumed the outcry must have been incredible. Yet no one dared try and stop these Draconian measures. The vast majority of citizens merely wanted stability far above anything else. They bore up to it bravely, as official sources boldly and repeatedly claimed.

  But what Cory discovered in her many interviews was that people honestly did feel such strict belt-tightening was necessary for the greater good. It was almost surreal how these old-timers spoke, she couldn’t help but notice. They almost sounded at times like official government spokespeople as they described the grim necessity of “stoppin’ the bleedin’,” as one elder upstate New Yorker put it.

  As one old Canadian fellow put it in his Quebec accent, “We were ku-wite fed up with teengs already, you know? Peeeple sticking their snouts into the public trough so to speak—wizzout contributing nutteeng. The jee-yuu...she put a stop to this nonsense, you see?”

  Such a blunt and yet safely-spoken comment was pretty common among that fated generation of hardened, hearty survivors, Cory repeatedly noticed. Nevertheless, they were clearly speaking the God’s-honest truth about how they felt; and there was certainly no doubting their sincerity.

  What’s more, when faced with the even more terrible worldwide crisis posed by Islamic Fundamentalists, folks were all the more willing to give ear to the organization’s ideals of global unity…and many that Cory interviewed hastened to point out that the reasons for widespread acceptance were both practical as well as rooted in a lingering fear over this more global threat which saw regimes falling in the Middle East and being replaced by Radical Islamists.

  Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and eventually even the proud nation of Israel succumbed to violent upheavals within their borders. Wars and civil insurrections lasting weeks or even months in some cases plagued the entire region throughout the next ten years, leading to skyrocketing oil prices and the overthrow of governments nominally allied to the West, but also economically reliant on international trade with both Europe and North America.

  Israel was the last of these to fall, and when its hard-pressed military finally used up all its resources—when there was no longer a strong United States of America to bail them out with supplies and advanced weapons—yet another diaspora occurred as Jewish refugees flowed out of the country northward to an already over-burdened Europe, seeking asylum.

  Millions fled as Jerusalem once again fell to Muslim forces seizing control of the ancient holy city. Many never made it to European shores—or they starved into human skeletons living for months inside make-shift processing camps set up outside European coastal cities.

  Many former Israeli refugees now living in North America, whom Cory interviewed privately, described it to her as a Second Holocaust. Only this time the determined nemesis to all those of the Hebrew faith was not some megalomaniacal European dictator with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. It was an old enemy nevertheless—which had both hated and persecuted them for years—and the results of this hatred could be seen and experienced by Europeans watching ships arriving in southern ports and transporting millions of frightened, exhausted refugees to the continent.

  Therefore, this growing international threat—the toppling of Middle Eastern democracies by radicals—was one very big motivation to vote the Pan Europeans into office and unite all of Europe with North America into a single Global Union. Japan, Brazil, Russia, India, and other nations soon joined as well. Even China humbly petitioned for membership. They simply had no choice, lest they lose all trade ties with the West.

  Globalization of international commerce was thus pursued in earnest. Borderless global trade, a single world currency, abolishment of tariffs, standardization of an acceptable international living wage, free public health care, free primary education…these were all proposed, then approved, and gradually instituted. Existing bloated bureaucracies were evaluated, pared down, or even eliminated. A streamlined, efficient system took their place, eliminating wasteful, often redundant programs for servicing the public’s needs.

  And in their place, minimal staff and administration overseeing existing public school systems and hospitals became the preferred format. Best of all, the lure of coming to Europe for its liberal social programs such as unemployment benefits which served to disincentivize personal initiative, dissipated and faded away like a human body purging itself of unhealthy toxins.

  Meanwhile, practically no one—that is, maybe?a mere handful?of the millions of survivors worldwide—would now?profess to?missing?those…“bleeding heart liberal social?programs”…and for that matter just?why would they anyway? ?What purpose would they serve now? ?Truly, ?the big cities had once become veritable?quagmires of social discontent and brimming?with legions of government-dependent?poor prior to the crash. ?

  Yet?what became of them, these millions living off government?handouts and entitlements? ?These millions worldwide, draining hard-working?taxpayers of their income?and siphoning off?the public treasury for subsistence.?These freeloaders and bloodsuckers?were largely eradicated during the crisis, most would later?coldly rationalize. Thus, in the minds of many she interviewed, there was no need to support this economic underclass anymore. ?

  Cory heard this commented on several times during her research, and even from?otherwise kindhearted?people who were honestly?just speaking their minds after nearly fifty years had passed—albeit with the benefit of time to smooth out their memories and?reorganize?the facts a bit. ?No doubt, over four decades of government propaganda and sanitized official historical accounts?of those early days during the recovery had colored their memories, Cory had to assume, but their resoluteness was notable nonetheless. ?Most truly believed the?stringent?measures taken by the GU had been both necessary and long in coming.

  Checks stopped arriving in the mail for unwed mothers with three or even five children from three different fathers. ?No more food stamps or grocery vouchers either; the government had cut them off permanently. ?And tragically, that’s how many believed it needed to be.

  “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,” stated?one spry?elderly American gentleman, quoting to?her?from the original U.S. Constitution, “but let me tell you, it don’t really turn out that way in the long run…not when you really look at it. They’s always gonna be people ya’ just cain’t do nuthin' fer.”

  But how to get?the remaining wealth of the world once again?flowing into and through this new world order now being?championed?by Karl?Habsburg’s Pan Europeans? ?The solution, Cory began to learn from her research, was quite simple. It was all there online for her to read in exhaustive detail. Establishing the Global Union and expanding its economic influence worldwide required only one very important thing really: ?dominating the money. ?Thus, the move to make the Euro the world’s dominant reserve currency made the most sense. What’s more it had been secretly sought after for several decades leading up to the crash.

  Yes, by dominating global money exchanges and becoming the world’s reserve currency, the cost of goods and services were slowly?brought under control within the original?European Union nations. The former United States and Canada, along with their traditional trade partner Mexico to the south, soon joined in, forming a single province called North America for the GU to easily manage, using remnants of existing bureaucracies and eliminating wasteful redundancies. ?Living standards among the nations plummeted initially due to the crisis, of course, but eventually things stabilized. And with the vanishing of American wealth and the devastation of its major cities, global industry was once again attracted to this new cheap labor force which despite the horrific loss of life still?numbered in the hundreds of millions. ?

  “We just had to accept it, that’s all,” as one kindly little old man put it in his inte
rview with Cory?from his retirement home in upstate New York. “We weren’t the land of opportunity no more. If jobs opened up somewhere else down the road well, people just had to take whatever they could get…but there weren’t no more need for folks comin’ up north from Mexico lookin’ for a better life, that was for damn sure. It wuddn’t no better up here than it was down there, ta’ tell ya’ the truth.” ?

  Some jobs were comparatively demeaning for Americans more?accustomed to positions in firms as white collar working professionals; and truly many of those vocations did indeed return with time. ?But once membership in the GU meant investment in industries for the rebuilding of major cities across the continent, those long-lost manufacturing jobs that had flowed out of North America ever?since the rise of the Labor Movement started returning. Also, converting large portions of the continent into solar farms to generate global stores of electricity, and subsequently power the world, would require millions of acres and millions upon millions of man hours to achieve. Meanwhile, here was this massive labor supply still crawling out of the 2028 Crisis ready and willing to work. ?

  “I guess if you can begin to understand just what we'd been through, it’d make a lot more sense," said the eighty-six-year old from Buffalo. “I really had no problem working construction down in the city after having a thirteen-year?career as?a claims adjuster for an?insurance?company.” ?Then he added with a smirk, “Shit, none of us cared back then—work was work—and it meant sendin’ them new Euros?back to?our wives?and kids so they could afford groceries. ?That’s all we needed, really, and there’s nothing like that feeling you get when you begin to think to yerself?’hey…maybe?we’re gonna make it through this.’” ?